Exxon-Mobil Tries to Bribe Scientists

Exxon-Mobil is continuing its dirty tricks. Through on of its funded thinktanks, the American Enterprise Institute, Exxon-Mobil is offering scientist $10,000 plus expenses to write articles contradicting the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI’s board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN’s panel as “resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work” and ask for essays that “thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs”.

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the “overwhelming scientific evidence” on global warming. “It’s a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims,” said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

“The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice,” he said.

The IPPC report that was released on February 2nd in Paris confirmed what those of us not on Exxon-Mobil’s payroll already know: Man-made activities are the primary cause of greenhouse gases that are causing global warming. The IPCC report was written and reviewed by hundreds of top scientists from 113 nations.

You may wonder where Exxon-Mobil would get the kind of money that it would need to run around trying to bribe scientists. Then, check out this story detailing how the companies has just reported the largest profits of any company in the history of the United States.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company–$39.5 billion–even as earnings for the last quarter of 2006 fell 4 percent.

The 2006 profit topped the previous record, also by Exxon Mobil, of $36.13 billion set in 2005. The 2006 earnings amounted to roughly $4.5 million an hour for the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, which produces about 3 percent of the world’s oil.

It also equals the approximate gross domestic product–a measure of all goods and services produced within a country in a given year–of countries like Ecuador, Luxembourg and Croatia.

Also eyepopping was Exxon Mobil’s revenue, which rose to $377.64 billion for the year, surpassing the record $370.68 billion it posted in 2005.

Granted reducing Co2 is a good thing, but the end of the planet is not near. Check record high temps for any month, you wont find 2006 among any of them. Possibly a given day there may be one or two or even a few. So if global warming is our demise, why isn’t it hotter now then 1898 or 1902 when many record highs were recorded. i’m pretty sure there are more cars on the road today then in 1898, since that is the year the car was invented. There were many more trees then there are now. so why is it our temps aren’t much higher then 100 years ago.

How much money Exxon makes doesn’t have much bearing on greenhouse gases.

No one can disagree that cleaner air is a good thing. However, doomsday fear tactics aren’t the solution.

Ron, I don’t think that anyone is saying that the end of the planet is near. What we are saying is that man-made activities are resulting in increasing levels of greehouse gas emissions that are cause global warming which will have a profound effect on the Earth’s climate. The impact on the climate will include a rise in sea level that will cause a change in weather patterns that will result in more severe storms, hurricanes, tornados etc. Regions of the planet that are now arid will receive even lower amounts of rain making it even more difficult to grow crops, the rise in sea levels will threaten coastal areas including the Gulf Coast, California, islands in the Pacific Ocean, rising temperatures will also have a huge impact also have a huge impact on people living in places like Alaska.

These changes will mean that millions of people will have to be relocated from the cities that will be most affected to other areas of the country and planet. There is no denying that that millions of people displaced by climate change will have a huge effect on how we live. It will also increase the frequency of international conflicts over natural resources including land, water and food

Exxon-Mobil’s profits do have an impact on greenhouse gases because their profits are based on feeding our addiction to fossil fuels. Our use of fossil fuels is a key cause of greehouse gas emissions. Our addiction to fossil fuels is not only contributing to global warming, its also a matter of national security because of our need for foreign oil and it has a destructive impact on the environment such as when corporations blow off the tops of mountains to mine coal. It would one thing if Exxon-Mobil was investing its record profits in developing techonoglies that produce clean energy, its another thing that they spend it on disinformation campaigns to fool the American public.

You’d think that with all the cash the energy monsters have been raking in courtesy of the Bush-gang, that they would simply buy up all the alternative energy production sources and take over the solar and wind power industries now while it’s small enough to be cheap. With their power to bribe the GOP, they could have solar panels on the roof of every piece of federal real-estate in the country, and windmills in the middle of every interstate highway within a few years.

They’d still have us all by the cohones because they’d still own all the power generation capacity. And they’d have enough umph to force Detroit to go electric, so you’d not have to stop and buy gas, but just stop and buy a recharge from your local Exxon.

Crikey, even the crooks in this country are incompetent. It just goes to prove that our government has been giving business way too many handouts. They’ve become too soft to work and too stupid to compete or take over.

Exactly. There is a huge economic benefit to moving towards renewable energy sources and technologies. U.S. could be on the cutting edge of developing these technologies which would mean that other countries would have to buy the stuff from us. Instead the corporations and their Rep lackeys are balling up their fists and acting like spoiled brats.